Coats or jackets having a removable inner insulated liner are well known. Various types of insulating liners being fastenable within an outer shell are commonly used to convert a thin outer shell into a warmer, double-layered jacket. These types of dual-layered jackets are popular as they provide a multi-purpose garment that is conveniently adaptable to quickly changing weather or to climates having large ranges in temperatures. As such, in warmer weather, the thin outer shell can be worn by itself, providing for a light windbreaker or raincoat for example. A thicker, inner insulated liner can subsequently be fastened within the thinner outer shell, thereby creating an insulated double-layer jacket suitable for much colder weather.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,361, issued to Carmen on Aug. 1, 1978, for example, discloses an outerwear coat provided with a removable inner liner. The liner has fastener means spaced from the edges of the liner such that it can engage mating fastener means on the edges of an outer shell. The portion of the inner liner between each front edge and each spaced fastener means defining, marginal panels which provide for an increased overall girth of the combined coat when the liner is fitted within the outer shell. This permits the internal girth of the coat to be the same whether the outer shell is worn by itself, or the outer shell is worn with the inner insulation liner therein.
Other multi-layer garments are also known that generally have an inner insulated liner, fastenable within an outer shell, thereby adding a warm inner layer to the interior surface of the outer shell. When converting from a thin outer shell that is being worn by itself, to a warmer insulated jacket, the outer shell must first be removed and the inner insulated liner can then be subsequently inserted within the outer shell and fastened in place.
However, for some uses of such a convertible jacket, it is considerably inconvenient or impractical to have to remove the relatively thin outer shell in order to be able to add the insulated layer to create a warmer, double-layered outerwear garment. For example, a snowmobile or motorcycle rider who is wearing a first, single-layer outer jacket but would like to add an insulated layer as the weather becomes colder, would have to completely remove the first jacket, thereby exposing themselves to cold or wet weather, for example, in order to be able to insert an insulated liner within the first outer jacket. This is evidently impractical when such a conversion from a single-layer jacket to a warmer, double-layered jacket must be done while traveling, for example.
Thus, there exists a need for a multi-layer outerwear garment comprising an insulated layer and a thinner shell, that permits the insulated layer to be fastened to the thinner shell without first having to remove the thinner shell.